Phyllis Curtin (née Smith; December 3, 1921 – June 5, 2016) was an American soprano and academic teacher who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She is known for her creation of roles in operas by Carlisle Floyd, such as the title role in Susannah and Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights.

Education and early career

Phyllis Smith was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and studied singing with Olga Averino at Wellesley College where she earned a bachelor's degree in Political Science. She pursued graduate studies in vocal performance under Boris Goldovsky at the New England Conservatory. In 1946 she made her professional opera debut with Goldovsky's opera company, the New England Opera Theater, as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. She took the surname Curtin from her first husband, whom she divorced after nine years.

She remained committed to the NYCO through 1960, where her roles included Alice Ford in Verdi's Falstaff, Antonia in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, Countess Almaviva, Cressida in Troilus and Cressida, Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Frau Fluth in Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor, Katharina in Vittorio Giannini's The Taming of the Shrew, Konstanze in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss, and the title roles in Verdi's La traviata and in Salome by Richard Strauss. She sang two roles in operas by Carlisle Floyd with the NYCO that she had previously created in their world premieres: the title role in Susannah (which she sang at Florida State University for its 1955 world premiere) and Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights (which she sang at the Santa Fe Opera for its 1958 premiere).

She appeared as Thérèse in the American premiere of Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirésias at Brandeis University in 1953. She returned to Brandeis two years later to portray the title role in Milhaud's Médée.

Curtin appeared at the La Scala in Milan in 1962, in Cosí fan tutte opposite Teresa Berganza. In 1966 she appeared in the world premiere of Milhaud's La mère coupable at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. In 1968 she appeared as Mimì in Puccini's La Bohème at the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company with Richard Tucker as Rodolfo and Ron Bottcher as Marcello. Other guest appearances included performances at the Scottish Opera (as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust and Ellen Orford in Britten's Peter Grimes) at La Scala.

Curtin made her Metropolitan Opera (Met) debut on November 4, 1961, as Fiordiligi to the Ferrando of George Shirley, Dorabella of Rosalind Elias, Guglielmo of Theodor Uppman, Despina of Roberta Peters, and Don Alfonso of Frank Guarrera. She returned frequently as a guest artist at the Met, appearing in such roles as Alice Ford, Countess Almaviva, Donna Anna, Ellen Orford, Eva in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Rosalinde, Salome, and Violetta. Her last Met appearance was on July 6, 1973, in the title role of Puccini's Tosca with Enrico Di Giuseppe as Cavaradossi and Ignace Strasfogel conducting.

Teaching

Curtin was a professor of voice at the School of Music at Yale University from 1974-1983. She was Artistic Advisor at the Opera Institute at the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Music, where she held a Deanship of the Schools for the Arts, as well as Artist-in-Residence at the Tanglewood Music Center where she taught voice for more than fifty years.

From 1979–83 she was the master of Yale's Branford College, making her that college's first female master, despite Branford fellows asking Yale to choose a "real master" instead. Curtin was dean of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts from 1983 to 1991, and founded its Opera Institute in 1987. As professor Emerita at Boston University's Opera Institute, Curtin taught a series of masterclasses at the school each semester.

Video and audio recordings

In 1995, VAI released, on compact discs, the 1962 performance of Susannah, from New Orleans, which co-starred Norman Treigle and Richard Cassilly. VAI and other record companies have released other CDs featuring Curtin. In 1988, Kultur published a video cassette recording of the 1968 The Bell Telephone Hour program, "Opera: Two to Six".

She can be seen in staged excerpts from Faust and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. VAI later released several Bell Telephone Hour DVDs featuring Curtin. In 2007 VAI released a DVD featuring Curtin in the soprano role (i.e., the Latin text) in Britten's War Requiem. This 1963 performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf at Tanglewood was the work's American premiere.

  • Curtin served on the National Council for the Arts, and in 1994 was designated a U.S. Ambassador for the Arts, a new honor given former council members.